Actually, yes there was a world-wide flood. But not the way that you think. It wasn't a one-year sudden deluge which reformed all geology and then subsided. As others have pointed out, the evidence does not indicate your idea of a Noahian Flood. And the waters of the actual world-wide flood have never subsided. Plus, we are facing the very real threat of increased flooding.

The actual world-wide flood started about 11,000 to 17,000 years ago at the end of the Wisconsinan ice age when the ice cap melted, causing the sea level to rise about 200 feet over several thousand years until it reached its current level around 5,500 BCE.

If you examine a world map that includes elevations and ocean depths, you will see several areas in which the ocean's depths are less than 200 feet. Like the Bering Strait and the Persian Gulf. Those were dry land before the sea level rose to flood them.

Now consider the effect of that flooding. Human populations tend to concentrate along the shorelines and in the lowlands. Therefore, it would be very surprising NOT to encounter flood stories world-wide as those cultures transmitted oral traditions telling of how they were forced out of their ancestral lands and had to flee to higher ground. The stories would have been more dramatic in those cases of lowlands that had been protected for a time by a natural dam until the sea level finally rose above that dam; the breaching of the Straits of Gibraltar and the flooding of the Black Sea are well-known examples of that.

And now with global warming threatening to melt the ice caps on Greenland and Antarctica, the sea level will rise even higher flooding out even more lowlands and forcing even more whole populations of humans to higher dry land.

As has already been explained to you, anglagard was the source of that list and hence those are his words. However, even if those were not his own words [grammatical note: subjunctive used to express a contrary-to-fact condition], those are still geological facts that a serious defender of Flood Geology would need to address. In other words, your objection -- even if it were valid [note subjunctive mood again] -- would still have afforded you no excuse from addressing the evidence.

I wish to introduce you to the web site of Glenn R. Morton at http://home.entouch.net/dmd/dmd.htm, a practicing petroleum geologist who has participated on this forum. He was a young-earth creationist and his original geology training was purely Flood Geology and he published more than 20 articles on Flood Geology in creationist journals. The rest of his geology training was on-the-job working directly and hands-on with the actual geological evidence, which is where he ran into trouble. Because every day, day after day, he kept running straight into rock-hard geological evidence that Flood Geology had taught him didn't exist and couldn't exist if Scripture were to have any meaning. He also hired other ICR-trained Flood geologists and they all encountered the same things that he was.

I first heard of him in a 1986 article reporting about the First International Conference on Creationism where he presented the first paper. In that paper, he presented the geological evidence that he had encountered with contradicted Flood Geology. He also reported that all the YEC geologists working with him suffered severe crises of faith because what they had been taught to belief (ie, Flood Geology) contradicted the actual facts. This was my first realization that creation science wasn't just completely and utter false and damaging to science education, but it also poses a grave danger to the faith of its followers.

What I didn't learn until much later was that after that conference Glenn himself was driven to the verge of atheism by Flood Geology. He was able to avert that consequence by arriving at a scientifically accurate way to harmonize the Bible with geology. Though he has emerged from the entire process as a strong opponent of creation science. During the time he was struggling with his own crisis of faith, he contacted all the other YEC geologists who had gone through that with him and asked them if there, of all Flood Geology's objections to conventional geology, where was at least a single one which turned out to be true. None of them could come up with one.

Glenn's site offers several articles describing the geological evidence. He also carries several testimonials written by himself and by others who had gone through the same thing. You can get to the index list of those articles, "Personal Stories of Creation/Evolution", at http://home.entouch.net/dmd/dmd.htm#_kmacleod. His own personal testimonials are:

Basically, my personal view is that "creation science" is false and full of deceptions. I have read and heard the testimonials of many ex-Christian atheists and one of the main reasons for their deconversions was the discovery that their religion and religious leaders had lied to them. Therefore, with religious leaders using "creation science", we have a case of entire denominations lying to their members. In reading the testimonials of ex-YECs (young-earth creationists) I have noted that their deconversion from YECism usually happened when they started to learn the truth about evolution and about science -- in Glenn's case, it was learning the truth about geology.

It is also my personal view that the fault lies in a particular theology that requires belief in statements about the physical world that are simply contrary-to-fact. The fault does not lie in religion itself nor in Christianity itself nor in science itself, but rather in that false theology that promotes the telling of lies and deceptions in order to serve the God of Truth. Let's face it, does God need to be served by lies? What does the Bible have to say about that? Does the Bible identify any Christian deity who is served by lies and deception?

In short, if your theology turns out to be wrong, then don't just become an atheist, even though that's what your theology teaches that you must do. If your Man-made theology turns out to be wrong, then correct it. Or at least seek a theology which is truthful.

Looking at that second link (http://unmaskingevolution.com/18-flood.htm), we see them boast of "over 100 evidences in support of a global flood, rather than a local one." and actually list 114. However, upon examination we find that "reasons" 1-12 and 59-114 are purely biblical (even the ones "from logic" are based squarely on a literalist interpretation of the Bible); only "reasons" 13 through 58 are claimed to be "from science" -- "45 reasons" when they actually number 46, demonstrating that the author couldn't do simple math either. It is only those 46 "from science" that should be considered, since those are the only ones that even begin to claim to deal with actual evidence.

The next question would be what is their evidence? What sources are they quoting? What formations are they refering to? What are they talking about? If those claims are supposed to be considering the evidence, then they need to indicate what evidence it is that they are considering. That's basic scholarship and the reason for following the rules and conventions of basic scholarship (eg, citing your sources) is so that others are able to refer to those sources themselves and see for themselves what the sources say.

Needless to say, creationist writers are terrible at citing their sources. When they do cite sources, they either cite another creationist source or else another creationist was their actual source but they cite a scientific source that that other creationist had "cited" (though that other creationist undoubtedly had done the same).

For a case in point of the later case, refer to my web page which details my research into a creationist moondust claim (http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/moondust.html). I heard Dr. Morris of the ICR make the claim in a debate, but he also makes it in a footnote on page 152 of Morris' Scientific Creationism (2nd ed) in which he cites as his source a "1976" NASA document, Meteor Orbits and Dust. In reality, his source was an unpublished document written by Harold Slusher of the ICR, which was released to me as a letter written by Slusher, in which Slusher gave his source as Volume II written in 1976. When I looked up that document, I found that it was a 1967 printing of papers from a 1965 conference and that it was Volume 11 (eleven) of the series. Obviously, Morris had never seen the document that he was falsely claiming as his source (ie, he was lying) -- since just looking at the front cover would have revealed the "1976" date to be wrong -- and it is rather apparently that Slusher had also never seen that NASA document himself, but rather had gotten it from some other unnamed creationist source.

In other words, whenever anybody cites a source, look it up for yourself.

Now, when you pick one of the "from science" "evidences" (HINT: "evidences" is a fundamentalist apologetics term) from that second link, please please please pick this one:

quote:(16) An analysis of population growth statistics confirms that there was zero population at the estimated time of the end of the flood. This indicates the global demise of humans by Noah's flood.

It's also known as "The Bunny Blunder" and is the subject of one of my web pages at http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/bunny.html (which I researched by reading and referencing a number of books by Dr. Henry Morris in which he developed and presented his claim -- in short, I went straight to the source to see what the source actually said). Basically, he worked out an over-simplistic population model which appeared to get the end results he wanted, but which produces hilariously ridiculous results for the ancient past (it brought down the house in a presentation where I first heard it).

So, I do hope that you will choose to present that claim. I'm just dying to hear your explanation of some interesting historical facts that Morris' population model reveals:

quote:According to Morris' model, in 2500 BCE, the world population was 750 people, so there were only about 150 to 200 able-bodied males, all concentrated in Egypt, available to hew and haul the 2.3 million limestone blocks ranging in weight from 2 to 50 tons to build the Great Pyramid of Cheops. During the preceding 200 years, even fewer men built six neighboring pyramids and many other structures. Things were even more hectic back between 3800 BCE and 3600 BCE when the total world population of 10 - 20 people, including women and children, rushed madly back and forth between Crete and the Indus River Valley building and abandoning enough fortified cities and massive irrigation systems to have housed and fed millions. My father was right; we HAVE gotten soft!

quote:One immediately apparent error in Morris' 1974 reasoning is that he forgot the Flood! (how could he, the Father of Modern Flood Geology?) The present human population did not start with some un-named couple recently evicted from an un-named Garden, but rather with the 8 un-named passengers debarking from an un-named Ark at the end of a year-long voyage through an un-named world-wide Flood (isn't this game of "Hide the Bible" fun?). However, working with the ICR's dates for the Creation and Flood (c 8000 BCE and 4600 BCE), and applying Morris' human population model, James S. Monroe discovered some even more interesting "facts" about the antediluvian world. According to the ICR's premises, the world population at the time of the Flood would have been at least 7.2946 E+19 people, or 13,000 people per square foot over the entire earth's surface. And if the flood only happened 4000 years ago as other ICR works suggest, then the mass of people on earth just before the Flood would have exceeded the mass of the earth itself.

With such a huge ante-diluvial human population, where are all the human fossils? Human fossils should be mixed in with all those other animals that perished in the Flood. So where are the the human fossils in those "Fossil 'graveyards'" mentioned in Repzion's sources (first link, #4, and second link, #32)?

The closest thing to a real world-wide flood is the rising of the sea level by about 200 feet when the ice cap of the last ice age melted. As I understand, it started about 11,000 years ago and ended around 5500 BCE with our current sea level. Again, nothing at all like what creationists are looking for, but I'm sure that sea-shore settlements throughout the world would have noticed.